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AWF18: Michael King Memorial Lecture – Ready or Not – Damon Salesa

There was standing room only to hear Associate Professor of Pacific Studies Damon Salesa deliver the 2018 Michael King Memorial Lecture, which he did with aplomb to an appreciative audience.

Salesa started with an acknowledgement of King’s achievements. He was important for explaining Māori to Pākehā, ‘and then his second career was essentially the reverse’. King was born into a deeply colonial world, but by the time he died Auckland was a Pacific city.

Photo courtesy Auckland Writers Festival

The theme of Salesa’s lecture was le ūa na fua mai manu’a – the rain came from Manu’a (metaphorically, you should have seen it coming). ‘Have our leaders seen the rain coming? Because it’s pouring.’ Salesa used a combination of statistics (‘numbers tell us certain kinds of truth’) and stories to illustrate the reality of 21st-century Auckland.

We are heading towards a population of old white people and young brown people: the fastest growing group of babies are Māori and Pasifika, and the caregivers for elderly Pākehā will be Pasifika, Māori, and Asian. Aucklanders tell themselves they are super diverse, but they live in very segregated ways. For example, two thirds of Pacific people don’t have a Pākehā person living in their neighbourhood. ‘I found a school with no Pacific students 16km away from a school with 99% Māori and Pacific students.’

Auckland is often called the world’s largest Polynesian city, but really, Salesa says, most Aucklanders live next door to the world’s largest Polynesian city. He compared the ethnic makeup of the members of the Auckland Blues with the members of the team’s board – ‘and the board of the Ministry of Social Development is even whiter’. But on the other hand ‘the NZ public knows something that our organisations have yet to learn’: there are 13 Polynesians in the NZ cabinet and four Pacific ministers (including of course Salesa’s wife, the Hon Jenny Latu Salesa, who was in the audience).

Photo by Elizabeth Heritage

Salesa noted that Pacific people are often at the sharp end of statistics around poverty and incarceration, but outperform other demographics in wellbeing and happiness. ‘Life is tough but for Pacific people but life is also good’: Pacific people are least likely to be lonely, and most likely to be good neighbours to religious minorities and migrants. Salesa stressed Pacific people’s agency and creativity, giving examples such as Three Wise Cousins (the tenth most successful film of all time in NZ) and the building of the Lesieli Tonga hall in Māngere.

Salesa challenged us to think what it would be like if New Zealand truly became a Pacific nation by embracing Pacific values: compassion, respect, family, speaking the languages of others as well as your own. ‘Pacific people are the future: Pacific people know your future before you do.’ He noted that what we call innovation in NZ is often just adopting what’s happening in the US: ‘most NZers make lousy Americans’ but we are the best in the world at being Pākehā, Māori, and Pasifika. ‘I’m really inspired by this Pacific future.’

To round off his lecture, Salesa had invited some Pasifika students to perform a song they had written. They introduced themselves as The Black Friars and proudly sang: ‘Make a change, make a choice, raise your hands and raise your voice’. It was an inspiring and energising session, and a great tribute to the legacy of King.